News for and about the Health 2.0 Community

Contributor policy

The Health 2.0 Blog is designed to be a blog for the whole Health 2.0 community to discuss anything of importance to the group. Since we’ve been encouraging people to connect online at Facebook, we’ve been noticing that there isn’t really a place to go to have substantive discussion. We love the Health2.0 wiki set up by Johannes Ernst (and with many contributions from Scott Shreeve), but a wiki isn’t a place for a conversation.

We hope that this blog will be.

So we invite anyone interested in the community to contribute. To do that you need to become a guest author, and then figure out how to use Typepad. Using Typepad is pretty easy as it’s got a WISYWIG interface. To become a guest author, email john@health2con.com. Guest authors must put their full name in the title of the post, so that it’s clear who’s saying what. If you are saying something as part of a broader affiliation (company, organization) please include that name too. Due to the nature of the blog and the Typepad software, we will manage the publication schedule of author posts (which will include gentle promptings if you’re posts are too far off base).

Of course anyone can comment on any post without being a guest author—we’re not going to moderate comments, but of course we’d ask for your good behavior and full names (unless you have a particularly good reason for staying anonymous).

Of course there are a few little rules for authors and commenters.

First, please be nice. We know some blogs (including THCB) may on occasion go over the top, but as this is to be a group blog featuring innovation in Health 2.0, we want the character of the group to be innovative and welcoming to contributors, commenters and readers alike.

Second, keep it pithy and interesting. Anything over 3–400 words should go “below the fold” but don’t feel you have to write much more. And of course please keep it on topics relevant to Health 2.0 (Yes, we know that gives you lots of scope).

Third, no crass self-promotion. Everyone is fascinated to find out what technology vendors and users are doing and we really encourage everyone with an interest in the community to contribute. But this is not a forum to sell. If you want to do that, we are (as on most blogs) going to be taking ads and sponsorship. If you’re confused as to whether a piece you’ve written is too close to the line, email john@health2con.com. But this isn’t the place for press releases. You’ll figure it out.

Fourth, as on most group blogs, you can publish at any time. However, the editors and blogmeister reserve the right to move stuff around to make it fit better, or to delay publication of certain pieces if there are too many on a particular day.

Fifth, be proud and clear in your authorship. Names in italics in the title please (convention is Title, by Author). And also name at the bottom in bold italics linked to your blog, or other information about you.

Sixth, cross-posting is welcome to your own and other blogs, but of course please link back!

Seventh, we reserve the right to take away authorship rights for persistent infringement of the rules—but we’re sure we’ll never have to, and we’ll gently nudge people first if they’re not quite in the spirit of things. (For example in all the years at THCB Matthew has only ever had to ban one commenter).